Duquette on team's wants, Wada, Scott, Bergesen, Roberts and more

Dan Connolly

Here's what Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette had to say today on a variety of topics:

“Our offseason shopping list was [to] upgrade the pitching staff and also sign a catcher. We’re still looking for a left-handed hitter for the outfield. And we also were interested in adding some infielders, and we’ve done that. We also need to be aware of a DH. We’re going to continue to look to upgrade the pitching staff and see if there’s an additional outfielder out there who can help our ballclub and then see if there’s additional bats that can help us.”

On free agents: “We’re still interested in adding players to help our ballclub, and we’ve got a couple trade discussion that are still alive.”

On adding left-handed pitchers: “Whenever you can sign a good left-handed pitcher … certainly a pitcher of Wada’s caliber … Wada has to be terrific, in terms of his concentration, he has to be a very good fielder and precise with his pitches. You can’t get to the level that he’s at to be the top in your league without preparation, good mental toughness and understanding the game, so he has all those traits. He’s a very uniquely skilled player, and we’re glad to have him. The fact that he’s left-handed is a big bonus because a lot of those [other American League East] teams build their club around left-handed hitters.”

On his comfort level with the Orioles' current pitching staff: “I believe we have improved our pitching. We’ve added two left-handed pitchers who threw over 185 innings, so certainly that’s additive to what we have. And we’re hoping that our other pitchers mature in the big leagues. We’re looking to continue to add to our depth. It’s a long season. We’re looking to sign as much good pitching as we can.”

On how Jim Johnson will be used: “That’s up to Buck in the spring. I believe there’s a lot of qualified starting pitchers who end up in the bullpen, and I’d rather see them go from starting to the bullpen than the other way around.”

On whether Wada will pitch behind Jeremy Guthrie at the top of the rotation: “I don’t know where they’ll come out on that. He’s a qualified pitcher. I believe he’ll be additive to our staff.”

On whether Wada can pitch 180 innings in a season: “His record suggests that he can because he’s done that.”

On whether he would prefer a full-time designated hitter: “It doesn’t matter to me.”

On Luke Scott: “We nontendered Luke, and Luke had some great years with the team, which we really appreciate. We just thought his value in arbitration was much higher than his actual market value. We are interested in Luke Scott. Whether we make a deal with him or not is another story.”

On Brad Bergesen: “That’s up to the manager. It really depends on how he pitches, right? I believe by having more depth, we make it more competitive for the starting pitchers going into our rotation, which I think is a good thing. I think that’s healthy.”

On the market of players who were nontendered: “We’re assessing that, we’re assessing that now.”

On second baseman Brian Roberts: “I don’t know the particulars of Brian’s medical situation, so I can’t really speculate on that. We are adding additional depth to our infield to staff our team for this year. We’ve already done that. We’ve added to competent infielders in Matt Antonelli and Ryan Flaherty.”

On whether he's close to making any personnel moves: “We’re going to continue to work on building our team. I can’t speculate whether we’re going to add people tomorrow or next week, but we’re working on it every day.”